Capitalist Christmas

Christmas has arrived, and it certainly is more than just a "big celebrity birthday" as Dave Letterman joked in his monologue of Dec. 23, 2010. The CBS censors cut that bit from their Late Show webpage so don't bother checking.
Christmas is ostensibly a religious holiday (but it really is nothing of the kind) and the modern celebrations associated with it, have been criticized for being too commercial, too material and too gleeful, for a religion that worships self-sacrifice and rebirth into the after-life. Since Christianity (and several other religions) have a large antilife component, the celebration of the birth of a saviour deserves a more serious tone according to Christian orthodoxy.
In a wonderful essay, first delivered on a radio show fifteen years ago, Leonard Peikoff explains how the Christmas celebrated today by Canadians and Americans was an invention of post-Civil War America, a creation of "the happiest nation in history."
Dr. Peikoff was born a Canadian (Winnipeg, Manitoba) in 1933, and became heir and executor of the estate of Ayn Rand upon her death. I first read his work in The Objectivist magazine 40 years ago. Today he is a leading advocate of Objectivism and founder of the Ayn Rand Institute. His essay is published annually in Capitalism Magazine and can be viewed here. Enjoy, and Happy Christmas!      

Couldn't close Kyoto at Cancun, warmist push fades

Don't let the picture scare you, a row boat in your garage is not yet a necessity. The ice caps are not melting that fast, not according to this posting, in fact, Arctic ice seems to be increasing. That may just be a short term blip, but in the UK, the Meteorological Office (Met) seems to have blown its own early guess (and I mean guess) as to the severity of this winter.
Around 4 inches of snow (9 cm at Heathrow, 11 cm at Gatwick) has crippled pre-Christmas air travel in the busiest hub on earth and across much of Europe. In Canada or the northern US states that amount of snow would cause a few delays. Maybe the Europeans have taken to heart the warming-alarmist view that winters will just get milder from here on. At the same time, some in Britain think that global warming has stopped.
Peter Foster of the Financial Post discusses the Met's blown prediction and the general issue of AGW in an almost humorous article this week that includes this paragraph:

"No doubt the warmist crowd will be quick to express outrage at this blatant confusion of global climate with local weather, but that won’t wash. The Met makes its short-term forecasts on the basis of the same brand of massive computer power and Rube Goldberg modelling used to project the global climate. The suggestion that forecasting the climate is easier than forecasting the weather comes into the same category as acknowledging that governments couldn’t run a lemonade stand, but then believing that they can “manage” an economy."

The Cancun Climate Conference, which ended a couple of weeks ago, was almost a total disaster for the warmists, but the Mexican government did not want Cancun to be remembered as the end of the struggle. Some last minute back-room arm twisting, and an attitude of agreeing to disagree, ended the conference with an agreement to "kick-the-Kyoto-can-down-the-road" until next year in Durban South Africa. No binding GHG reduction targets were set beyond the already surpassed Kyoto targets for 2012. The Kyoto Protocol is still alive (but zombie-like) until next year. An agreement to set up a $100 billion/year bullshit fund by 2020, with few actual details of how to collect the money was also reached. I have a feeling that economic priorities will neuter that deal and any others.
In Europe and around the world the rules of economics have made the huge government subsidies of the so-called renewables industry unsustainable.
The Spanish have cut support for wind projects by 35% and solar payouts by 45%, and Spain is still on the verge of needing a bailout (from whom?). In France and Germany solar projects have been severely cut back. In Australia, solar-power producers had their payouts cut by 66%. In the UK a backlash against rising power rates has forced cuts to wind projects causing the Danish Vesta company to close five factories in Denmark and Sweden and layoff one-seventh of its global workforce. The green collapse is spreading to the United States and it won't be long before the greenest of all the provinces in Canada, Ontario, follows suit.
In a series of scathing columns, Lawrence Solomon of the Financial Post outlines how Ontario will need to "renege on the egregious green contracts" that were put in place by the irresponsible McGuinty Liberals. Solomon suggests that is the only way for the province to escape bankruptcy in the near future. According to Solomon, the power future for Ontario, for Canada, and the world is still fossil fuel for now.  

 

Bankrolling subway expansion

Last week I made an outrageous comment in a posting 'Essentially a disservice,' where I suggested how a government transit monopoly might be broken up in stages. It probably wasn't the best suggestion, I know there are many other ideas that are better. The truth is, if I knew all or even some of the answers to problems like this, I would not be blogging. What I do know is that there are problems of governance that can be approached from other directions different from the prevailing spend and tax paradigm. That is the beauty of a free market and a competition of ideas.

So I was pleased to read a story in one of Toronto's newspapers that a member of the Ontario legislature, MPP David Caplan, suggested that subway expansion in Toronto  could involve private sector money to help finance this very expensive project. I'm not saying that this will break up this particular government monopoly, but that kind of thinking needs to be encouraged. The other good news about this idea is that the newly elected administration  and mayor of Toronto, might be amenable to Caplan's suggestion unlike the socialist mob that ran the city for the past 8 years.    

Which genocide was the worst?

“We should look at every genocide equally.” That is a quote from the president of the German-Canadian Congress in their complaint against a permanent Holocaust exhibit at the new Canadian Museum for Human Rights in Winnipeg. This article in the National Post on the weekend, shows how divisive government assistance can be. The controversy highlights two issues, the first being which genocide was the worst?

The Armenian and Rwandan Genocides were horrible and tragic events; but to compare them to the Holocaust is a disservice to the memory of those lost through the 1930's and 40's, and the survivors.  

The Holocaust was unique in human history because it involved legislation by the German government of the time, including the participation of the professional class and the entire legal system. Furthermore, for the president of the German-Canadian Congress to compare any of those events to the expulsion of Germans from East Prussia at the end of the Second War is intolerable.

Secondly, this new museum in Winnipeg is heavily funded by taxpayer’s money from various levels of government, Federal, Provincial and Municipal, including to their dismay, citizens who are members of the German-Canadian Congress.  Government cannot and should not try doing all things for all people. If the museum was funded entirely by private and corporate donations this controversy would be moot.